Fifth Vial by Michael Palmer

Book Description

Tough, ambitious and hardworking, Natalie Reyes finds herself suspended - unjustly - from Harvard Medical School, and it feels like her world has ended. But when her mentor sends her to present a medical paper at a conference in Rio de Janiero, it almost does...Kidnapped, and shot while trying to escape, Natalie is left for dead in an alley. Against all the odds she survives, but her dreams are shattered. On the other side of the world, medical genius Joe Anson is working on a serum which could save millions of lives - if only he can fend off a fatal illness long enough to complete his research. But Anson is running out of time, and those watching from the shadows will stop at nothing to ensure he fails. Meanwhile, in Chicago, disillusioned private detective Ben Callahan is struggling to identify a dead man; struggling to find an explanation for the mysterious marks on his body. But the answer could lead Ben into a conspiracy far wider than this case...Three people with no apparent connection learn the meaning of trust and betrayal as they are drawn into the web of secrecy which surrounds the fifth vial.

Books By Author Michael Palmer

A book about Dante's youth, an account of his love for Beatrice, the girl who was to become his lifelong muse, and of her tragic early death. It is also an allegory of the soul's crisis and growth, combining prose and poetry, narrative and meditation, dreams and songs and prayers.

Two helicopters disrupt the peace of Dr Gabe Singleton's remote Wyoming ranch. From one of them strides the President of the United States with startling news - and a stunning request which will turn Gabe's quiet life upside down. President Stoddard's personal physician has mysteriously disappeared, and he needs Gabe to take the man's place.

The Bristol badge sat proudly on a succession of fast, reliable and expensive 6-, 8- and 10- cylinder cars since 1946. This book provides a history of the development and production of each of the cars, including coachbuilt and racing models, and full specifications. It is illustrated with over 400 photographs.

Reviews

US Kirkus Review » M.D.s hurry the organ transplant along a little faster than would naturally be the case.Medical-thriller specialist Palmer (The Society, 2004, etc.), a doctor himself, sets 35-year-old Boston medical student Natalie Reyes against a worldwide association of transplant specialists who think they know best how to allocate the organs, regardless of the wishes-or even the knowledge-of the donors. Natalie, a former Olympic runner, was suspended from her program when she second-guessed a resident in the E.R. With time on her hands, she is available to deliver a paper in Rio for her research supervisor and mentor. The Brazilian jaunt turns nightmarish immediately: Upon landing, she hops into a cab that takes her to the dark heart of the city and winds up losing a lung after being shot. Back in the U.S., private investigator Ben Callahan, a sweet former schoolteacher, starts on a track that will eventually hook him up with Natalie when he is hired by Organ Guard International, an under-funded association of physicians doing combat against organ trafficking. Professor Alice Gustafson of Organ Guard asks him to identify the battered body of a young man found in Florida bearing scars that suggest bone marrow donation. Meanwhile, Dr. Anson, a reformed rake doing research in tropical Africa, fights to keep working while his diseased lungs threaten his life. Anson's research is funded by the Whitestone Foundation, an arm of a medical conglomerate with which Ben will become familiar as he sorts out the very few clues available to identify that involuntary marrow donor. Then Natalie's insurance claim turns out to be odd enough that she calls the hospital in Rio where she lost her lung only to discover that she was never a patient there. She'll have to go back to very scary Brazil.Nothing creepier than a bad doctor. (Kirkus Reviews)

Author Biography - Michael Palmer

Michael Palmer, M.D., trained in internal medicine at Boston City and Massachusetts General Hospitals, spent twenty years as a full-time practitioner of internal and emergency medicine, and was an associate director of the Massachusetts Medical Society's physician health program. His books have been translated into thirty-five languages. He died in October 2013.

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